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She gave him a scorching scowl. “You are not helping.” She looked back at the slew of papers strewn out on the table before her. “I almost have it.”
“Sure and that’s what you said ten minutes ago.” They had until midnight to meet Willoughby Galloway with the location of Innishfree’s secret meeting. The Irish separatists had a traitor installed in Buckingham Palace, and Galloway had been assigned to sabotage the traitor’s efforts to assassinate the Queen. Galloway needed to see who attended that meeting.
If there was a secret meeting.
Some of the words on the missive had been blackened by the fire where Galloway had rescued the paper. Cal had no doubt as to Bridget’s deciphering skills, but she couldn’t decode what was not there.
He turned at the end of the room and saw Bridget was watching him. With the candle illuminating her face and casting a glow about her red hair, she looked even more beautiful than usual. Looking at her now, his breath seemed to flee in a whoosh. This happened sometimes when she walked into a room or he woke to find her sleeping beside him. The fact that she was his wife suddenly crashed over him. How could he possibly be so fortunate as to have a wife so beautiful and intelligent and fearless? He’d never imagined this for himself.
And he’d definitely never believed he would be in the employ of the Crown, his wife working at his side. Baron had been right to make her one of the Saboteurs. Her skills had proven invaluable in thwarting Innishfree.
But there was more to be done. Galloway needed them.
“Do you have it?” Cal asked.
“I want to apologize,” she said. Cal frowned and resisted the urge to check his watch. “If I had had any notion of how vexing I must have been when I held a clipboard in one hand and a watch in the other, I would have ripped both from my hands and flung them in the nearest pond.”
Cal smiled. “Would you then?”
“Yes, and I most certainly would never have given you that watch if I’d known it would transform you into a monster. I think you should toss it in the rubbish bin.”
He fingered the pocket watch. “Me wedding gift from you? Not likely, lass.”
She rose. “I’ll give you something else.”
“I don’t want something else.” And he didn’t. He’d never had a watch before. He’d never had a great many things he had with Bridget now, and he couldn’t bear to think of parting with even a single one.
She gave him a sultry smile that set his heart galloping in his chest. “I think we can find something that might please you as much as that watch.”
“No doubt,” he said, his voice husky. “But we have more pressing matters at the moment.”
“Then by all means, let’s dispatch with them quickly so we can go to bed.”
“It’s a brilliant suggestion. One problem. We need the place.”
She held out a scrap of paper. “I have it.”
He took it from her, read the name there, and then glanced up. “Are you sure about this?”
She nodded.
“Galloway won’t like it.”
“He’s to keep the Queen and Prince Albert safe. Nothing else matters.”
“Sure and you be the one to tell him that.” He lifted her cloak from the hook by the door and fastened it over her shoulders. “Ready, darlin’?”
She looked up at him, her eyes bright, and slipping her hand into his, pulled open the door. “Together we’re ready for anything.”
